You know, I was really on a roll with these since the pandemic started, and then I finally got to the Gill episode and *poof* all of my footage had disappeared. That sucked. Anyway, we should be back to our biweekly schedule now (maybe!).
This is the first episode that is wholly affected by the Covid pandemic, too, and you can probably tell. I had always planned for this episode to have more CPU interaction as a last resort, since nobody I know plays 3S Online Edition where Gill is playable. That means I needed to be a little creative with the footage for the first part of the episode, and dig out my PS3 to record training footage for his move set for the second. It works out fine, but the visual differences between versions of the game kind of drive me nuts. Nothing you can do about that now, I guess.
But, and here's a little inside baseball, I thought there was. I also own the game on 360, where the quality of recording via Elgato is supposed to be better (PS3 recording only goes up to 1080i). It's not egregious, I guess, but I can tell the difference in the 30th Ann. Collection vs. 3SOE and I bet others will, too. Why did didn't I get 360 footage? Well, it turns out there's some weird HDCP issues with Xboxes using HDMI cables. At least, it was a problem I was running into. The footage was recording correctly on my computer, but the image on the TV was too distorted to make anything out. The real problem is the 2-3 second delay from button input to what gets recorded, though, and since I needed a single player run of the game to capture win quotes and CPU opponent paths, this was untenable, even for a busted character like Gill. History is saddled with 1080i, it seems.
Other fun weirdness: 3SOE runs the game in its proper resolution, but only during matches (unless you were one of the savages that stretched the game to widescreen in the options menu. Please stop following me if this is you). The win quotes, player select, and opponent paths are all widescreen. This made the windows in the episode a little different to size. Not that big of a deal. This is the first, and hopefully only, episode, though, that I needed to pull SFIII game footage off of other YouTube channels. If you've ever watched my Annotated Symphony of the Night series, you can tell that this is something I try to actively avoid. I like to source my own video footage because I can control the quality of the output (above paragraphs notwithstanding), but since I don't own a Dreamcast or a copy of Double Impact, I needed to get Gill's ending footage from 2I from another YouTuber. This person was credited during the ending card. Oh, and yes, I call it "Double Impact" in the episode but show the Japanese version of the game, which is formally titled "W Impact." The Japanese box art is just cooler. An intentional screw up.
Things that should have been in this video: I mention at the end of the episode that Gill's face for one of his win poses is redrawn. Should have included that. The smirk on his face for NG and 2I is just too dopey not to see it. Sorry.
Finally, I thought about calling this one Gill and Urien, Part 2 just like how I renamed the Yun and Yang episodes. After finishing the script and the episode, though, I found that they don't rely on each other like the twins do. The differences in design inspirations are just too far apart for the episodes to be coupled together, even if we're just talking the title of a YouTube video. I also wanted to make it somewhat special by calling it another BONUS STAGE, even though it's not a video about punching a car or whatever. I mean, he's not playable in most builds of 3rd Strike, especially these days with 30th AC and Fightcade emulation being the most accessible way of playing the game, so it's a bonus, right?
...Right?
